Forging a Partnership With Your Spouse in a Family Crisis

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aioclub.org slash radio. We like to suck out all of the icky parts of life in Christianity, and the reality is that God embraces and joins us in the icky parts, in the here. That is so true and we're going to be talking specifically about keeping your marriage strong when life is hard. This is Focus on the Family. Thanks for joining us.

Your host is Focus President and author Jim Daly and I'm John Fuller. John, when life is especially difficult as it's been this year, it's easy to let our marriages be the first thing that start to slip. Sometimes that looks like letting our relationship with our spouse to go on autopilot and at other times we can even start to turn against our husband or wife in the midst of all the stress. Yeah, that stress really puts pressure on the relationship. I really appreciate and I think we quoted this in our marriage, the verse in Ecclesiastes 4 that says, two are better than one. If either falls down, one can help the other one up. Right, and I'm sure your marriage isn't perfect, but let me encourage you when things get hard, don't back away.

Instead lean in to your relationship. As you'll hear in the story we're sharing today, if you hold tight to your faith in God, a crisis can actually make your marriage stronger than ever. Yeah, today we have a conversation that we enjoyed with Elisa and Evan Morgan. Elisa has been on the broadcast a number of times. This was the first time though that her husband Evan joined us. They've been married over 40 years and have two adult children and two grandchildren and Elisa has written about their journey together in her book, The Beauty of Broken, My Story and Likely Yours Too.

We've got copies of that book along with information about our free counseling services. Just look for the link in the episode notes. Let's go ahead and listen in now to our recorded conversation with Elisa and Evan Morgan on Focus on the Family. Elisa, welcome back to Focus and Evan, first time. Yes. So we want your perspective today. Okay, you can get a word in, right?

Well, no, that'll be the challenge, but it's every man's challenge. I'm so glad he's here. No, I really am so glad he's here because in telling the story, he is integral to the whole thing. So yeah, you know, I want to start here, Elisa, because there's a great scripture that both you and I speak at different venues. And this one really spiritually gets me because it's there in Psalms and it says, He's close, meaning God, he's close to the broken hearted and saves those crushed in spirit. And it resonates with your title of your book, The Beauty of Broken. I guess the question starting here is why is broken as part of our experience? It's that infinite question, if God is so loving and kind, why does he want us to be broken?

So hard. And going through it, it's almost impossible to understand how our loving God can allow pain in our lives. Getting beyond it, it makes a little bit more sense. But what I've experienced is that I have had a kind of an idealism about walking with God that if I just knew Jesus, you know, I'd have the answer to do in life in a better way. And the reality is that when we know Jesus, we're invited into a journey where he lovingly pulls us towards himself. But that means that things around us and ourselves as well may break.

He himself broke that he might be in an intimate relationship with us. Right. Think of that in his anguish on the cross with his father.

Yeah, it's huge. I mean, I actually think about Isaiah 53. I think it's verse five by his wounds were healed.

And that really means black and blue marks that that's broken blood vessels. But we like to like suck out all of the the icky parts of life in Christianity. And the reality is, is that God embraces and joins us in the icky parts in the here. Yeah. And I so appreciate, I guess, what we might call the meta narrative there.

And I feel like it's a good place to start in terms of that question. But rolling back now, let's go back to that college class when you two met. And this is so funny. I love this, because you're trying to concentrate. I'm trying to concentrate on Evan, who you don't even know is interrupting you. So what happened?

It's so annoying. Yeah, I hadn't heard of the book boundaries yet. I don't Well, it sounded like she caught your eyes.

So most guys, you throw boundaries out there. There's actually a seminary class. And there weren't a lot of women in this place. And an Old Testament class is how we met. So I spied this cute girl sitting there.

And I thought, wow, there's a chair next door. Sure enough, she didn't want to be interrupted, though, because she was studying for Greek. Yeah. A lot of concentration for me. What happened?

What was that transaction like the first one? Well, as Lisa writes in the book, I literally asked her about four questions, and I got one word answers, and she wouldn't even look at me. And I'm thinking, Oh, okay, this is a dead end. But finally, she looked up and we just connected. And I get that we eyes met.

There was music, there was doves, it was really translate, I wish I should have looked up sooner. But that was the beginning. And we started dating. And we were we were engaged three months later.

Man, that is that is pretty quick. But that's what Greek will do for you. I hope you meet in the Greek class. Hey, you know, that moment is so fun to talk to newlyweds or engaged couples, because there's so much enthusiasm. And you know, after you're married a few years, that enthusiasm can roll over.

But how do we keep healthy enthusiasm going? Because all the science, and there's biological science that supports this infatuation, that googly eyed thing, whatever you want to call it the tingles. I mean, that kind of lasts a year or two with marriage, and then that can begin to fade.

What needs to replace that? And what does it look like? Yeah, I think everybody's different. Every relationship and marriage is different. For us, it has been doing life together. And by that I do not mean playing golf together.

I know you're sad about that. But what I mean is really caring about where each other is invested and joining them there. So I mean, we talk every day, even in all the years where maybe one of us has been traveling, or one of us has been focused in or out of the home. We talk every day.

He said that like a surprise. Is that normal? Or do many couples not talk? I'm not living in everybody else's house. Well, but being the president of mops for many years, you've heard from women who were lonely. I think we blow intimacy up into this googly eyed thing. And I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that just talking counts. That is a real way to stay connected.

Because when Evan sharing with me what he's really going through, and I'm sharing what I'm really going through, that's intimacy. That really is the whole thing. You know, something caught me Evan, and I wanted your perspective, you were the CFO, I think of a university of Denver Seminary, right? Denver Seminary. So not only did you meet your wife there in Greek, you became the CFO of that same university. Right.

That's pretty funny, actually. But and I don't mean this in a negative way. But being a CFO, you're it sounds like your numbers guy, you can be probably pretty compartmentalized what a lot of us men suffer from. And you go about your day, and I'll tell you, I love you, you know, 14 times, but you're not getting 15 out of me. I'm being but how do you combat that as a compartmentalized male? How do you step out and say, Okay, I need to, I need to talk to Lisa. I mean, talking to a lot of guys that are connecting with what I'm saying, they're going, that's me.

Yeah. And I think when, when we were going through a lot of the crisis, we were going through that part of my personality, the organized, my dad was an engineer, civil engineer. And so I can't, you know, it just but I, that helped in terms of the organizational side. But the intimacy side comes often through going through these struggles that we come together. And it's a different type of intimacy that maybe people think about.

But there's a sense in which we cannot survive this, unless we're hand in hand and determining. And that means a lot of communication, too. Well, yeah, communication, I guess that's the critical point. And I think, for men, and what is really good for women to hear, is it can be both your strength that those qualities that he possesses that steadfastness, but then also that communicate with me, talk to me.

And so many women are longing for both. But men struggle to deliver on that second intimacy level of talk with me, just don't be my rock. Speak to my heart. And it's easy to retreat, I think that way, too, is just say, Well, you've got it covered, and you're the communicator. And so I can just retreat and allow you to handle some of this. And again, we haven't even really unfolded the story. So let's go there, Lisa, speak to your family of origin, those things that were so difficult, what you talk about in your great book, the beauty of broken. Give us that picture.

Sure. I come from a broken family. My parents were divorced when I was five. And then later, as I grew up in a single mom family, I realized my mom was broken through alcoholism.

So broken through divorce, broken through alcoholism. And for me, when I found out that Jesus loved me, I was I glommed on to that in such a tangible way. How old were you in that? Well, I kind of knew God growing up, because my mom would drop us off at church. She was so super smart. She'd have two hours free as a single mom. Most of our parents, we have that story.

They didn't go, but they would drop. That's genius. My wife.

Genius. But anyway, so I grew up kind of knowing God, but then I discovered him differently as a teen. I discovered Jesus as a teen, actually, through the ministry of Young Life. And when I found out that Jesus was really the real deal, I thought, well, now I've got every answer I could ever want. I may have come from a broken family, but I determined I was going to build a perfectly intact second family.

Okay, so that was your goal. Evan, you're coming from kind of a bit of an opposite. But I, you know, when I speak, I'll often ask the audience, anybody from a perfect family?

I haven't seen a hand go up. And actually, one time I did. I said, but you got to have an uncle and the hand went down. That's good. You know, you were perhaps healthier, but describe your growing up years. And it was opposite ends, potentially, is that grew up in a Christian home. And I say that, kiddingly say that I had my Christianity with my oatmeal, you know, was just that was part of that was part of the family dynamic.

But like most, my dad was a military guy, Lieutenant Colonel engineer, as I mentioned. And so things were just kind of regimented around the house, not a lot of times that I can recall, maybe not even one of a really close father son kind of relationship and mentoring or wisdom. And so I later developed relationships with two other men that just became very instrumental to me. But that was a different side. So we meet this and we're like, Whoa, you know, in the first couple of years of marriage, yeah.

And we quickly said, you know, we ought to just get therapy and figure out how to do this and try to navigate because we were so different. You're talking about Yeah, yeah. So those are the clash points. Yeah, describe that the first couple of years.

What were some of those friction points that you encountered? Well, there are several of them. I mean, I was not a quote, typical stay at home mom.

Well, let's back up. We knew we couldn't have children biologically. Okay, right, right. You know, in the book, you painted this picture so well. And emotionally, it really caught my attention where you get married, and you set up the nursery thinking adoption would be quick and right there. And years, you know, three, four, five years go by I say it's like being dilated to nine for like five years, right?

I mean, I mean, in the dust collecting. And at least I mean, there are women hearing this, and they're starting to tear up as they are living it or every Mother's Day goes by. So you speak to that emotion and what you're going through, and then the joy that okay, something happened. Right. So we are waiting for children. And I'm working full time. I'm a dean of women at a Bible college. Evan is CFO of a seminary achievers. We're high achievers.

We're high achievers. That's part of the story too. And so you know, we are waiting and waiting and waiting. And truly as I waited and waited, I had this idea, I was going to give the child the perfect family.

Evan had this idea for different reasons. And I had this sense as I was praying one night that God was saying to me, Elisa, by the time this baby, whoever it is, is going to be placed in your arms, he or she will already have experienced the greatest wound of their life. And I'm like, What? I can make up for that.

You know, it's what I'm thinking inside myself. I truly didn't understand that. But what we're story is, is that around after about five years of marriage, we do become parents first of a little baby girl who was just, you know, three weeks old, and then a little baby boy two years later, who was an infant as well. And we parented joyously with Jesus all over it for many years. And then in the teen years, we watched our family fall on break. And that's what Evan's talking about, too, about the, whoa, we had to figure this out, fall and break in ways that stunned us.

Yeah. And we want to, you know, get into that. There's, again, so many people and I appreciate your vulnerability.

That's one of your great qualities, both as a couple, but at least running mops that that's what I think endeared people to your leadership, especially the women that we're feeling are going through things like you've gone through. None of us know what we're doing as parents. So we always think the other person does. And God gives babies every time to people who've never been parents before. I don't know what he's thinking. Correct.

And so again, I think you can feel these words going out through the podcast, through the radio program, people are going to be touched and people are living in that space. So your daughter's 16. What happened?

Well, it's a really weird series of events. She was this beautiful, five foot seven state ranked swimmer who had just returned from a missions trip with church to serve HIV AIDS orphans in Kenya. Check that, everything working well. Looking really good. Mom and dad doing good.

Still on the perfect track. Got it. And I can feel it.

I mean, we feel like that with our boys. I get it. And legitimately proud. You know, I'm not trying to... Honor roll student, I believe in your... Close.

Yeah, doing really good. And I actually had a dream. And in the dream, really weird. I was in a home that was under construction. And I was walking through it. And Jesus was my tour guide. He had a little hard hat on.

It was bizarre. And he stopped at these two rooms that were adjacent to each other. And he goes, Elisa, this one's for your daughter. And this one's for the baby. And I went, what? And I woke up. And I shook that puppy off. But I'm not kidding. A couple of nights later, the dream repeated itself, this home under construction in scaffolding.

Same thing. This room's for your daughter. This room's for the baby. And a few days later, I'm at mops around a conference table. And this group of people is planning the future of what would be called teen mops for teenagers who were becoming pregnant. And I sensed the Holy Spirit saying to me, Elisa, you're going to know more about this than anybody in the room. I am like, what? And I go home and I ask my beautiful daughter, is there any way you could be pregnant? And she nods. And I went and got a pregnancy test me never before pregnant me.

I went to the store and got one. And I stood outside the bathroom door while my daughter peed on a stick and found out yes, she's pregnant. And Evan is traveling. And I call my dear precious husband and tell him, it's news we never, ever, ever dreamed we would hear.

And I'm president of president of mops in the process. Well, that whole connection. I mean, that's what's difficult. It's the image.

It's what will people think? Not that you, I don't feel like you're a person that puts too much weight on that. Everybody does, though.

Everybody does. You get up in front of people. And I never did pretend, as you're saying, Jim, that I had it all together. I God called me onto a platform of vulnerability going, I don't know what the poop I'm doing either. Let's figure it out together.

But there is a huge shame. And for me being sandwiched between my mom who had so many struggles, and then myself, who was trying to be perfect, the perfect mom, and then my daughter who suddenly fell and broke, I realized I needed to work through my expectations for her and my definition of who I was, as my children would be the report card of my performance. I had some work to do. But before you figure that out, and I'm going to get to you in a minute, Evan, how you respond as dad, and it's really important, but your upbringing triggered, you know, get involved, take control.

Let's make this happen. I can relate to that being growing up in an alcoholic home as well. You become intensely responsible. And is that what happened for you?

Sure. I mean, I would vacuum our house growing up and empty all the ashtrays and, you know, get all the cat vomit out of the corners and the naughty pine planks. I did that all growing up. So when my daughter became pregnant, I went into high fix it mode.

Describe what that looked like. It's like standing in front of her body at Target when a neighbor walks by as if my five foot three 105 pound frame can hide my daughter's budding pregnancy. Hello, Lisa, but I wanted to fix it. I wanted to hide it.

I wanted to change it. We withdrew her from school, we homeschooled her, we wanted to support her, she made the decision of what she would how she would parent or not parent this child. And she made the decision at the end to relinquish. But we were there to help her figure out the math and how much would she have to make to support this child?

How long would she have to live with us? It was just dramatic. But in the process, and this goes back to our earlier parts in our conversation, I kind of shoved Evan back into the back bedroom to watch golf, thinking I can do this.

This is my job. Continuing on, then specifically in your marriage, let's bring that facet into this. Your son, also later you adopted a son, he had some difficulty too. But how in marriage did that impact you to have children struggling? What did that do to your relationship?

And what warning do you have for us? One of the things that happened is that when our daughter gave birth, she gave birth extremely prematurely. And in that moment, Evan and I had to divide. I had to stay with her and Evan went with the new baby because there were no adoptive parents yet identified. And that that's really what has shaped us a lot is I understood more of my need for Evan. I couldn't be the fix it for everything I needed him what he brought was different.

But he brought it if there's one story that you tell honey about the night you couldn't sleep, and how much it affected how we both looked at the whole process of both of our children. Yeah, it was during the midst of this, I was one of those times where you just wondering you borderline between anger at God and questioning God. And I literally was just making laps in our house between the living room and the kitchen and the dining room and literally for a couple hours. And I wasn't my best spiritual moment. I was God, where are you in the midst of this?

Both kids struggling. I just kept asking, What do you want me to see here, God? And I just felt drawn to sit at our bay window and look up at the sky.

Look at the stars. And, you know, I'm looking up say, Yeah, yeah, majesty. Great, God, you created all this. I probably should have been vaporized.

It's pretty vulnerable. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just saying, God, this. Yeah, I see you're majestic. And I've always been sort of love looking at the stars. But after literally about a half an hour just staring on this beautiful, cloudless night here in Colorado, where you can see the stars where we live, I focus on the Orion's belt, those three perfectly aligned stars in the sky. And I'm sitting there thinking, you know, I don't know much about stars, but I'm guessing that those stars are millions of light years apart, right? And if I run a spaceship circling around one of those stars, I would have no idea that there's two other stars that are perfectly aligned with this one. And they aren't aligned at all from when you're the closer you get.

Right. And I just hear God saying to me, exactly. He said, Take a seat here in the celestial throne for a moment. And where I sit, everything lines up. And it's just been one of the most incredible spiritual moments for me to say, when we trust God that he's sovereign, that he understands anything that looks messed up right here, perfectly aligns in his ultimate purposes and plans for us. It's just so now I go out almost every night on deck to pray and to look for Orion's belt.

It's my prayer time. That's interesting. But it is the most difficult thing. And I would assume the scripture that really illuminates that, not to keep the star thing going here, but, you know, this idea that all things work for good to those who love the Lord and are called by his name. But it's hard to believe that when you're in it, because it's painful. At least I've often wondered about a book title written by a woman because a man cannot write this book, but it's almost the curse of Eve, fear and control. And, you know, men can have those same attributes.

I get that. But I think women, particularly moms struggle in that area because of that fear they have that their kids won't turn out the way they expect. And then you compensate by over controlling the situation, which generally pushes that child right into the danger zone because they're trying to become independent. How would you respond to that? That is, I think you hit the nail on the head, you know, we men and women, you know, have certain deficiencies because of our fallen state.

And for a woman, often it is this kind of fear, this kind of I'm going to take charge and not every single one of us, but a lot of us do. And I think the understanding that God loves our children more than us. I remember sitting in church when my son was far, far away, and there was a toddler sitting next to me. And I was looking at his little toes, you know, their legs go straight out on the pew seat. And as I was looking at his little toes, and I remembered back to when my son was a toddler. And I just was looking at his feet. And I thought, Oh, Jesus, I have no idea where those grown size 13 feet are today. And I sense the Lord going remember, remember my interaction about Nathaniel, I saw him under a tree.

This is in one of the Gospels. And he goes, I know where he is right now. And it was such a comfort to me, there is a reality that we're not parenting alone, even if we're single. Some of us have a marriage and a partner in parenting. Some of us who are separated from our spouse or our partner still have that other partner involved with the children.

But some of us are on our own parenting. And the reality is, is that God's not going to leave us alone in that process. He does know where that child is. He sees them. And we need to recognize that he does. Right. And you're ending on the right tone here that God sees you and God knows you.

For the listener. Let's skip ahead a bit. How are your kids doing now? So today, both our kids are married. Our daughter has two children that, you know, are hers. We've lost a grandchild in terms of death.

And we've also lost one in terms of relinquishment. But we are whole and intact, if you will. But what I want to say is that we're still a mess. I mean, if you like pulled our family out of the oven and put a toothpick in us and still a little gooey in the middle.

Yeah, it's a little gooey in the middle. So, you know, life doesn't ever get wrapped up with a bow. And I've come to really value what I call broken family values. That's really what God's heart has been about shaping in us. You must have been reading the scripture. Because most of the families, if not every family in there is a broken family mess.

Yeah. Speak to the couple who's still in the trenches of a crisis with their children right now. Maybe that's why they tuned in thinking, you know, maybe focus will speak to me today.

What can they do to establish that partnership with their spouse to get through these hard times? Well, I remember a friend of mine saying, and this helped nothing saying, just realize that 93% statistically, these kids will be okay. And okay, I hear seven.

Yeah. So I think, first of all, just to say, some of our well-meaning kind of advice doesn't mean a lot wearing in the throes of this level of just gut wrenching pain. I just remember the only time I remember falling down on my knees, and it was in the shower was after we'd had to send my son to try to get some help away. And I just didn't know if it was right decision. And I just fell on my knees. There's really nothing that you can do at that point. Is there anything that you can do at that point is accept if you can come back to the sense of trust, the Orion's belt moment, however, God brings that into your life just to say, God's got this, I see you, I know where he is. That's what I can all I can bring to that moment.

Because a lot of times the formulaic answers for someone in the midst of that for me was not helpful at all. It's just I'm still hurting. I'm still down on my knees sobbing.

But I do know in that moment, there's somebody who cares much more about this child than I do. And that's yet to you, Jesus. And so that's what I have to encourage people to just come back to fall on the knees of trust. Boy is so good.

So good. And again, much more that we've left on the table here. But I'd encourage you the listener, if you're in that spot, we're here. And at least then Evan have bared their heart for you today. This is what we in the Christian community call a testimony. And this is meant as God's story in your lives to help you in yours. And if you're struggling, if you are suffering, not only in your marriage, but in your parenting, call us today, let us be there for you. We have caring Christian counselors who can help we have referrals, most likely with somebody in your area who you can continue that discussion with.

We have marriage intensives with hope restored, we have a plethora of resources that can help you, but you've got to take the first step. You've got to make that phone call and reach out to us. I do hope you'll call our number is 800-A family. And we do, of course, recommend you get a copy of Elisa's book, The Beauty of Broken, My Story, and likely yours too.

It's the kind of book that can really help you in your healing journey. And if you would please make a gift of any amount today to Focus on the Family, and we'll say thank you for joining the support team or being a part of the support team by sending a copy of that to you. Again, our number is 800-232-6459, or click the link in the show notes. On behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team, thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family. I'm John Fuller back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ. Find a special place in your home for a limited time. You can get this special edition print at focusonthefamily.com slash prayer for life.